Welcome back to week 6 of our series “Weekly Tips to Help you Stop Binge Eating”! Read the first five weeks here!
We’ve all been there. You’ve had a long, stressful day, and the only thing that seems to provide comfort is that pint of ice cream in the freezer. Emotional eating happens to the best of us—it’s a natural way that many of us have learned to cope with stress, sadness, boredom, or even happiness. But when food becomes your main emotional outlet, it can lead to feeling out of control around eating and even guilt afterward.
The good news? Emotional eating doesn’t have to control your life. You can learn to recognize it and develop healthier ways to cope with emotions. In this article, we’ll explore the causes of emotional eating, how to identify it, and most importantly, how to reduce it’s occurrence!
What Is Emotional Eating?
Emotional eating is when you use food to manage or suppress negative emotions like stress, anger, boredom, sadness, or loneliness. But emotional eating isn’t limited to negative emotions—sometimes, it’s a way to celebrate, reward yourself, or avoid discomfort.
When you’re an emotional eater, food becomes more than just nourishment—it becomes a distraction, a comfort, or even a form of emotional anesthesia. And while eating emotionally can offer temporary relief, it often doesn’t address the real issue, leaving you feeling stuck in a cycle of emotional highs and lows.
The Emotional Eating Cycle
The emotional eating cycle often looks like this:
- Trigger: Something stressful or emotional happens (work drama, loneliness, boredom).
- Craving: You start craving comfort foods (sweets, salty snacks, carbs) as a way to cope.
- Eating: You eat to soothe your emotions, often without realizing how much you’re consuming.
- Guilt: After eating, you feel guilty, frustrated, or ashamed, which leads to more negative emotions.
- Repeat: The cycle begins again the next time emotions arise.
Does this sound familiar? If so, don’t worry—you’re not alone, and it’s possible to break this cycle!
How to Stop Emotional Eating: 5 Supportive Steps
1. Identify Your Emotional Eating Triggers
Before you can stop emotional eating, it’s essential to understand what’s triggering it. When you find yourself reaching for food, pause and ask yourself:
- Am I actually hungry?
- What am I feeling right now? (Stressed, lonely, bored?)
- What triggered this feeling? (A tough workday, a fight with a friend, etc.)
By tuning into your emotions, you can start to recognize patterns. Are you more likely to turn to food when you’re stressed? Or do you tend to snack when you’re bored on the weekends? Awareness is the first step toward change.
Pro tip: Keep a “feeling journal” and write down your emotions before you eat. Bonus points if you use fun emojis to describe your feelings! 😅😡😋
2. Find Non-Food Coping Strategies
If you’re turning to food to cope with emotions, it’s because it’s serving a purpose—it’s comforting, distracting, or numbing. To stop emotional eating, you need to find non-food ways to address those same needs.
But here’s the key—it’s okay if food is still one of your tools for emotional comfort. The important thing is to acknowledge that food provides only temporary relief and doesn’t actually solve the underlying emotional issue. You can keep food as one option, but it’s empowering to develop other tools for feeling and managing emotions.
Ask yourself:
- What other activities make me feel grounded or calm?
- What have I done in the past (non-food related) that has helped me feel better?
Here are a few non-food coping strategies you can add to your emotional toolbox:
- For stress: Try deep breathing, yoga, or a walk outside.
- For loneliness: Call a friend, join a social group, or cuddle with a pet.
- For boredom: Engage in a hobby, read a book, or try a new activity like painting or dancing.
- For sadness: Write in a journal, listen to music, or write down 3 things you are grateful for.
Tip: Not every activity will work for every emotion, so experiment! What calms you when you’re stressed may not help when you’re feeling sad. Keep a list of your go-to coping tools to refer to when emotions hit hard.
3. Set a 5-Minute Timer
When the urge to emotionally eat strikes, it can feel so overwhelming that food seems like the only answer. One powerful technique is to pause, set a timer for just 5 minutes, and try something else before you decide to eat.
What to do in those 5 minutes? Here are some fun, light-hearted ideas:
- Take a few deep breaths to help calm your nervous system.
- Go for a quick walk to clear your head.
- Have a mini dance party in your kitchen (put on your favorite song and let loose!).
- Stretch or do some light yoga.
- Write down what you’re feeling at the moment.
Often, giving yourself that 5-minute pause helps you re-center and recognize whether you’re actually hungry or just looking for emotional comfort. If, after 5 minutes, you still feel like eating, that’s okay! The goal is to create space for reflection and connection with your emotions rather than automatically turning to food.
4. Practice Mindful Eating
Mindful eating is a game-changer when it comes to breaking the emotional eating cycle. Instead of eating mindlessly, this practice encourages you to slow down, savor your food, and truly tune into your body’s hunger and fullness cues. Click here to read our article on how to eat mindfully!
5. Don’t Ban “Comfort Foods”
A common mistake in emotional eating recovery is banning certain foods, especially comfort foods like chocolate, chips, or ice cream. The problem? Restriction often leads to bingeing, which only reinforces emotional eating.
Instead of creating strict rules around food, give yourself permission to enjoy all foods in moderation. By removing the “forbidden” label, those comfort foods will lose some of their emotional power over you. Click here to read last weeks article on working through food rules!
Pro tip: Talk to yourself like you’d talk to a friend. Would you call your best friend a “failure” because she ate an extra slice of cake? Of course not! Treat yourself with the same kindness and understanding. 🌸
Final Thoughts: Let Food Be Fuel, Not a Fix
Emotional eating can be tricky to navigate, but with time, awareness, and some self-compassion, you can learn to break the cycle. The goal isn’t to never eat emotionally again (because let’s be real, we’re human!), but to expand your toolbox so that food isn’t the only option for handling emotions.
So next time you’re feeling stressed or sad, pause before reaching for that snack and ask yourself, “What do I really need right now?” Sometimes, the answer is food—but sometimes, it’s a little deeper than that. 💛
P.S. I hope you found this article helpful, if you have any questions feel free to comment on this article or send me an email at: toni@intuitiondietitianco.ca. If you would like to work with me to stop binge eating and heal your relationship with food you can book a free discovery call.
